- The Spec: 54/17/0 or 52/11/8 (there are many variations)
- Presence: Blood
- Runeforge: FC (Fallen Crusader)
- Glyphs: Heart Strike, Death Strike, DRW (Dancing Rune Weapon)
- Sigil: Awareness or Vengeful Heart
General Info about Blood:
Blood in patch 3.1 was not a very attractive arena spec. It was for the most part inferior in both burst and sustained damage due to the number of high armor targets in arenas. It also had issues getting kited, and the amount of armor penetration required for the most part was difficult to obtain. Blood has seen more use in raids, where bosses have considerably less armor then plate PvP'ers. In raids stat points could be put into ArP (Armor Penetration) as well, while most PvP gear has no ArP.
However, with the nerfs to both frost and unholy (an no nerfs to blood) in 3.2, blood is now looking to be a more competitive spec then in 3.1. Blood spec requires ArP gear in order to be viable against plate teams, which means you may end up having to raid to pick up some gear with ArP on it. It would be ideal to get near 50% passive ArP and raid to get a Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone as well.
How Blood is played:
Blood is mainly a physical damage based burst spec, meaning it is great against cloth and not so great against plate. Blood also has high survivability due to self healing and improved blood presence, as well as Vampiric Blood. The largest issue with blood is that they can be kited, and can not do much at range.
Arena based blood spec revolves around 2 abilities: Heart Strike and Death Strike. The spec has very low reliance on diseases, and many players don't even bother with diseases at all, since Death Strike is not effected by diseases on the target.
Unholy and Frost runes are almost always used for Death Strikes. Chain of Ice is sometimes used for a peel, but thats about it. Icy Touch and Plague Strike are generally not used at all against any team with a dispel (everything except very few druid healer teams).
Blood Runes are used Heart Strike. Heart Strike stick up a 50% undispellable snare on the target(s) it hits. Heart Strike also has a cleave effect, meaning it hits 2 tagets. There really is nothing else to use blood runes for, and many blood specs don't have Death Rune Mastery, so the blood runes will never turn into death runes (aside from Blood Tap).
The burst sequence for blood is pretty simple. For the most part it's [25+ RP] DS -> DS ->HS ->HS. Death Coils can be used if you have the runic power for them. As for cooldowns, Hysteria should be used before DRW (Dancing Rune Weapon) since DRW gets buffs the user has before it is casted. If using a disease spec the diseases should be used after DRW so that DRW will put up the diseases as well.
Optional Talent Choices:
- Endless Winter (If you want to play as a disease spec)
- Toughness or Runic Power Mastry (Improved IT isn't needed since IT is rarely used)
- Anticipation (2% dodge beats PS, since PS is practically never used)
- Unholy Command (-10 sec on Death Grip can be useful for peels)
